Actually that is a very good description of what happemns when the action has exceeded the memory available to handle the processing task or a software routine has corrupted an operating system procedure. Recovery typically requires a reboot of the operating system, which typically results in the loss of an open file unless the file data was was automatically cached on permanent storage before the application and/or operating system corruption and crash.
Another window of Word was able to operate just fine without anything being done to the system.
Microsoft Diagnostics found no problems with anything.
And none of that stuff explains why the rotate function was corrupted during that Word session, or why it stopped being corrupted when I started a new session even while the old session was telling me that Word needed to restart. Microsoft Diagnostics found no problems and took no action.